In a superb essay Henryk Broder addresses German leftists’ sanctimonious protest of the “wall” in Israel that is intended to, and in point of fact does, keep Palestinian terrorists from conducting further attacks.

Never in the 28 years during which a wall divided Germany and people who only wanted to move from Radebeul to Regensburg were hunted down and mercilessly shot like so many rabid dogs there was there ever – in Cologne or anywhere else – a conference held under the slogan “Stop the Wall.” On the contrary; anyone who thought the wall was not entirely a good thing and the GDR, as a whole, was less than perfect was a reactionary, a revisionist, a fascist. And there was no talk anywhere of a “barrier wall” that reduced peoples’ freedom of movement and led to Apartheid. In the Bonn republic’s leftist and progressive milieu there was respectful and sympathetic reference to the “anti-Fascist protective wall” that would ensure the GDR’s continued existence. And when the wall fell, mourning and distress spread through the leftist and progressive milieu. Not about the more that 1,000 people who had died along that border, but rather about the end of the ‘socialist utopia.’

The first wall that these fools, who were approvingly silent about the Berlin Wall, demand be torn down is between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Why? Because this wall makes it more difficult for Palestinians to kill Jews. And that’s a violation of basic human rights that leftists and progressives, who like to wrap themselves in the PACE flag, cannot accept. Israel is the first, and to date the only country in the world being asked to expose its people to terrorism so that another people’s freedom of movement not be constrained and their quality of life not be negatively affected. I call that a fair, sober, sensible comparison of conflicting goods. It obviously would be even better if Israel would build welcome centers along the Green Line, greet terrorists with goodies from the neighborhood welcome wagon and then escort them to their targets. That would not only be perfect service, but also a signal that Israel is really taking the UN General Assembly’s resolutions and the International Court’s expert opinions very seriously indeed. …

That’s why Europe needs a scapegoat, someone who can be held responsible for everything. If the Arabs turn off our oil, then it’s because of Israel. If the Third World War breaks out, it’s because of Israel. If the Americans attack Iraq, it’s because of Israel. Not long ago the Berliner Morgenpost, which belongs to Springer Publishing, printed a cute little cartoon called “Pulling Ariel’s Cart.” It shows a happily grinning Sharon sitting comfortably in the driver’s seat and a huge sack labeled “Palestinian Territories” in the cargo bay. Sharon has the reins in his hands, but the cart is not being pulled by a horse. It’s being pulled by George W. Bush. It’s the Jew who’s got the American on a leash.

What does that remind us of? When did we last see such cartoons? Was it in the Nazi Stürmer or in the communist Neues Deutschland? (our translation)

Uwe Schmitt’s piece in the “Berliner Morgenpost” provides an interesting insight into Bush hating journalist’s agit-prop strategy. Schmitt, a tried and tested practitioner of biased journalism, is a character with whom the readers of this blog have most likely been quite familiar for some time now.

Prophets in their own Country

It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the silence that met Susan Sontag’s article, ‘The Photographs are Us,’ in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Her complaint that Abu Ghraib had made America the equal of every other corrupt, torturing occupying power generated now feature articles, no op-ed pieces….

But no one can argue that there is no inherent shame or horror in the mainstream’s silence on Sontag’s essay. It’s as if there is a growing awareness that nothing "un-American" happened at Abu Ghraib, but rather that that is the norm in the war against terror – fought without rules. And that America had lost its honor.

Abu Ghraib gave the war’s opponents the moral high ground. …

The bloody situation in Iraq pushed the left into the mainstream…a mainstream in which more and more Americans are losing their faith in the war and in their president. … Susan Sontag admits, after having written a few thousand words, that a picture does in fact say more than a thousand words. Thousands more would follow, “endless war, endless stream of pictures.” If the president fails in his re-election bid, then certainly neither Hollywood nor the punk rock initiative “Rock against Bush” will be at fault. It will be the 1,000 un-American pictures from Abu Ghraib..”

We have to thank Schmitt for his frank reporting. The “pictures from Abu Ghraib” are the means that is supposed to push the left into the mainstream. Therefore the abuse perpetrated by a few on one day are to be presented as the norm that makes “America the equal of every other corrupt, torturing occupying power.” And the hysterical reporting from Abu Ghraib has served its purpose when “the president fails in his re-election bid.”

Although things seem to be going a’gley yet again…

“I am of the impression that a certain weariness of these pictures has already set in...” (Uwe Schmitt in Die Welt, May 29th, 2004)

Not that the Berliner Morgenpost (MoPo) matters a lot - but this article provides a typical example of the kind of biased "Chaos in Iraq" reporting that is so prevalent in Germany's media.

The USA in Iraq: Stay or Leave

(...) All that's left is chaotic muddling through - without vision or strategic coherence. And the trends are moving in the wrong direction. ... As far as the economy is concerned, the Iraqis have hardly benefited from the $18.6 billion of promised reconstruction funds. ... (The) trends point to chaos and horror.

The article's author, Boris Kalnoky, painted a much rosier picture of the economic development in Iraq not long ago. He seems to have lost track of the situation.

During his latest trip to the Afghanistan Donor Conference in Berlin, Secretary of State Colin Powell made some remarks on the intelligence leading to the Iraq invasion. Germany's media are in full swing:

QUESTION: I’d like to go back to your UN speech from last year. One of the most dramatic elements of that speech was about the mobile biological labs. And in recent weeks it has emerged that one of those intelligence sources you cited was flagged as unreliable by U.S. intelligence and another source had never been interviewed by U.S. officials and that we didn’t even know his name. It turns out that he was a relative of the INC. So, in light of that, was this really the best intelligence the U.S. could have put forward at the time?

SECRETARY POWELL: It was presented to me in the preparation of that as the best information and intelligence that we had. And I looked at the four elements that they gave me for that one and they stood behind them. Now it appears not to be the case, that it was that solid. But at the time that I was preparing that presentation it was presented to me as being solid. Now, the commission that is going to be starting its work soon, I hope will look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at that time. They certainly indicated to me as I was working on that, that it was solid. I’m not the intelligence community, but I probed and I made sure, and as I said in my presentation, these are multi-sourced. And that was the most dramatic of them and I made sure it was multi-sourced. Now, if the sources fell apart then we need to find out how we’ve gotten ourselves in that position. I’ve had discussions with the CIA about it.

So Powell admitted that there are doubts now whether some of the information he had received was "that solid". He doesn't say it wasn't solid - he just mentions the possibility of an error ("if the sources fell apart...").

It is quite telling that, in the German media, there was virtually no reporting or information provided on other meetings during his trip in which Colin Powell strongly defended the Iraq invasion:

(Deutsche Übersetzung: am Ende des Beitrags)
What's Europe's culpability in nurturing a nuclear black market?
The least one can say is that German technology is involved, as the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports. And the Dutch based research facility Urenco is a major supplier of nuclear technology to Pakistan and Iran. Urenco is a joint development of Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain, founded by their governments:

In the early 1970s the German, Dutch and British governments signed the Treaty of Almelo, an agreement under which the three partners would jointly develop the centrifuge process of uranium enrichment. Urenco Limited was established in 1971. ...
Today, Urenco is truly a global supplier of enrichment services, delivering more than 13% of the worldwide enrichment requirements. ...

Why aren't the German media focussing more on the supply link between a European nuclear facility (sponsored by the governments of Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain) and North Korea and Libya? There are clear indications for this link:

Two Dutch ministers said on Monday there were "indications" North Korea and Libya may have acquired potentially arms-related nuclear technology developed by British-Dutch-German consortium Urenco that Pakistan and Iran are known to possess.

David Albright, a former IAEA inspector in Iraq who has closely tracked the Libyan investigation, said Libya's centrifuge supply network was similar to the one developed by Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s -- only much bigger.
"The fact that Libya could go out and buy an entire centrifuge plant without anyone detecting it is startling," said Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security. "It represents a failure of the export-control system, and most certainly a failure of intelligence."

Whose export-control system, and whose intelligence? A few European governments might need some explanation to do... I'm just glad, President Bush has a bold nuclear containment strategy!